


Camping, Cocaine, and Bears: Oh My!

by emynii, ObliObla



Series: Nia & Obli's Whumptober 2019 [31]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Camping, Crack, Gen, Humor, Hunters & Hunting, Light Angst, Post s02e04: Lady Parts, Tumblr: luciferprompts, Whumptober 2019, Wilderness Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 09:00:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21389545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emynii/pseuds/emynii, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObliObla/pseuds/ObliObla
Summary: When the LAPD sends Chloe, Ella, Dan, and Lucifer on a Team Building Scavenger Hunt in the San Gabriel Mountains, Dan's just glad that Lucifer's as annoyed as he is. But when disaster strikes, they're going to have to work together, assuming Dan can get Lucifer to do anything at all...For the Whumptober prompt: embrace
Relationships: Chloe Decker & Dan Espinoza, Dan Espinoza & Lucifer Morningstar
Series: Nia & Obli's Whumptober 2019 [31]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1502000
Comments: 74
Kudos: 408





	Camping, Cocaine, and Bears: Oh My!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all for coming on this (slightly late) journey with us!
> 
> For a Luciferprompt (specifics in endnotes)

“How long must this interminable exercise go on?” Lucifer whined, kicking a pinecone with one of his absurdly fancy ‘hiking’ boots at the perfect angle to hit Dan in the ass.

Dan scowled and glared back at him. As if it was Dan’s fault the department had sent them out to the ass end of nowhere halfway up a mountain in the San Gabriels for ‘team building’. As what Lucifer insisted on calling ‘the department bottom’—something he refused to laugh at, at least, in Lucifer’s presence—Dan continued to quietly do his duty, even if Ella, the newbie tech, had taken the map and insisted that she would  _ “lead our team to victory”. _ Frankly, Dan would have preferred to sit by one of the perfectly serviceable streams in the area and do enough fishing to remind himself that he really,  _ really _ hated fishing. Or, really, he’d most rather be with his little girl, not trudging through a forest with a stranger, an absolute dickhead, and his ex-wife.

Unfortunately, before he could respond with one of his normal insults, Ella cut in. “Come on, Lucifer, don’t you like scavenger hunts?”

“No,” he said shortly, loudly wiping some nonexistent dust from his pant leg. _ “I _ am not a magpie, nor a dog, nor a child.”

“Could have fooled me,” Dan muttered under his breath.

Chloe rolled her eyes. “I’ve seen your penthouse. You collect tons of stuff.”

“Yes,  _ meaningful _ things that have been gifted to me over the centuries. Not pointless knickknacks that one can purchase at a dollar store. And certainly not cheap tchotchkes strewn about on the side of a mountain!”

“Wow, you’re real dedicated to this ‘Devil’ role, aren’t you?” Ella asked, turning the map sideways as if it would help them track down the small, plastic stegosaurus they were supposed to be finding. If Dan was being honest with himself, he hated all this shit too. But it was worth it to annoy Lucifer. It’d be nice if Lucifer didn’t, in turn, have to annoy  _ him. _

“You humans are destroying your own planet, you know,” he said, aiming another pinecone at Dan, who dodged it and glowered, kicking one behind him.

Ella shrugged. “At least we’re trying to stop it.”

“Some of you, anyway.”

Chloe rolled her eyes again.

* * *

“Ow,” Lucifer said sharply after they’d been walking for the better part of an hour, lifting his foot and staring at it like it’d betrayed him.

“What is it this time?” Chloe asked, pulling him forward to keep moving.

“My toe!  _ Ow...” _ He hissed and stopped walking again. He yanked off his boot and sock. “What is  _ that _ ?”

“Oh, dude, that’s a wicked blister,” Ella said.

“Put your boot back on, Lucifer,” Chloe said exasperatedly.

He grumbled, but did as he was told, leaning against a tree, sighing as his fancy, totally impractical jacket got messed up. “Cannot believe they betrayed me,” he muttered.

Dan shook his head. “Well, if you’d just gotten some  _ normal _ shoes—”

“Excuse me, Daniel. These are Louboutin Citycroc Leather Hiking Boots. They came highly recommended by my cobbler.”

Dan scoffed. “Recommended for what?”

Lucifer frowned. “Hiking.”

“Nature hiking or urban ‘hiking’?”

His frown deepened. “What's the difference?”

Dan buried his head in his hands and groaned. After two days up in these damn woods, his already tenuous patience was seriously strained. He was only holding back from outright hostility for Chloe’s sake. After they’d finally divorced the week before, there was no reason to exacerbate tensions.

They reached a cliff face, and stopped for a moment to take a breather, all drinking from their water bottles. Lucifer had his flask, like he always did. On company time.  _ Great. _

“We’re close!” Ella exclaimed, turning the map sideways again. Dan was beginning to seriously question her navigation skills, but he didn’t know her well enough to say anything. It’d be fine, probably.  _ Keep your head down and don’t make waves, _ echoed in his mind. He didn’t need any more conflict after goddamn Palmetto.

After their short rest, Ella started to lead them up a narrow ridge, repeatedly reassuring them that they  _ weren’t _ lost, they were definitely not lost.

“Ow!” Lucifer said,  _ again. _

“What?” Chloe asked, apparently out of patience as well. Dan wanted to laugh, but he recognized the expression from before, when they were married.

“Something  _ bit _ me!” he said with utmost offense.

Dan, who had been smacking mosquitos for the past three hours, shook his head, stepping over a small pile of loose rocks. “Yeah, it happens.”

“Not to me!” he cried.

Chloe rolled her eyes, again, and pulled some bug spray out of her pack. She pressed it into his hands. “Here, put that on.”

“But...”

Dan nodded to himself and clapped Lucifer on the back, pushing past him to check the map. “Suck it up, pal.”

Lucifer froze in his steps, looking deeply outraged, but Dan ignored him. He’d been learning, recently, that the best option was generally to ignore Lucifer. Dan was a big enough man to admit that he wasn’t very good at it.

* * *

After an hour-and-a-half in rough terrain—which, compounded with yesterday’s walk up to this team-building-site-thing in the middle of nowhere was beginning to make even Dan’s feet hurt—Ella shrieked and ran forward.

“Stegosaurus stenops,” she whispered, “at last.” She picked up the small yellow toy with near reverence.

“Oh, thank God,” Dan muttered under his breath. The sun was starting to sink below the horizon, and he really wanted to get back to their camp before nightfall.

Lucifer glared at him,  _ again, _ though he had no idea what he’d supposedly done this time. “Excellent.” He turned on his heel and started heading back, leaving them all behind him.  _ “Starving.” _

Chloe sighed and stared up at the sky. “What did I do to deserve this?” She shook her head and headed after Lucifer.

“Right?” Ella stuffed the map back into her pack, following Chloe. “This is  _ awesome.” _

Dan massaged his forehead. At least they only had to stay here one more night. Tomorrow they could walk back down the mountain to the car and go home. Tomorrow. He just had to survive tonight. He nodded to himself and started the slow walk back to their camp.

* * *

The camp was a mess.

They’d made it back, rubbing their hands together to stave off the cold, to find the food dragged down from where they’d secured it up in a tree, the tents torn apart, and half their supplies strewn on the ground. Scratch marks on the bark made it clear that the local black bears had decided they needed the food more than the humans did.

“Fuck,” Dan said tersely as they—that is, he, Chloe, and Ella—dug through the mess by the insufficient light of dusk. Two of the tents were completely destroyed, but the frames of the other two were intact, if a little bent. They still had sleeping bags,  _ thank God, _ but pretty much everything else was broken or trashed.

“Satellite phone’s busted,” Chloe muttered.

“Well, don’t bother praying to Gabe, that tosser,” Lucifer said from behind Dan, “for a supposed messenger he’s rather worthless, even if we’re apparently in  _ his _ mountains.”

Dan turned and glared. “Food’s gone too.”

“I guess you get to go to bed without your pudding, then," Lucifer said idly, sitting on the single camp chair that was still in one piece like it was some kind of goddamned throne.

“Have you ever taken anything in your entire life seriously?” Dan asked bitterly, trying to straighten out one of the tent’s support poles. It was going to take time, but he thought he could probably fix it enough to sleep in. Chloe was doing the same with the other tent, and Ella was trying to start a fire with what was left of their gathered firewood.

“Not if I can help it,” Lucifer said, rolling his eyes. “Look, Daniel, this changes nothing. Surely you humans don’t die from lack of food after a few hours. You can’t be  _ that _ fragile.”

“What?” Dan blinked at him, then opted to ignore him again. He was just a voice in his head; a really,  _ really _ annoying voice. Satisfied with the repair job on the frame, he started pulling the torn fabric together. It didn’t look like it was going to rain, at least. He sighed and looked around by the light of the small fire for something that would help—he knew he should’ve brought that duct tape. He found a few bungie cords and carabiners and rigged up a cover with one of Lucifer’s fancy and now torn up bags.

“Is this  _ leather?” _ Dan asked disbelievingly.

Lucifer actually deigned to get up at that, walking over, apparently, to mourn his lost pack, and not to actually  _ help.  _ “Yes, and it’s Gucci, and Guccio was a friend, so treat it gently.”

Dan shook his head. He was never going to understand this guy.

When they finished cleaning things up the best they could, they sat around the small fire, warming their hands and staring into the flames. Dan’s stomach growled, but he tried to ignore it. His tongue was dry, and he ignored that too. It was too late and too cold to walk the half hour at  _ least _ to the small creek they had crossed earlier.

Tomorrow morning they would walk back down the mountain, drive the two hours to the sleepy little tourist town Dan had already forgotten the name of, and everything would be fine. Sure, they’d technically _ failed,  _ or whatever, but wasn’t ‘working together to overcome’ the mantra of this whole pointless thing?

They’d certainly repeated it enough times

At least, he reckoned, piling a few extra small branches onto the too small fire, Penelope had been in town to take care of Trixie. Chloe broke him from his thoughts. “Unfortunately, we’re going to have to double up. I know there’s not a lot of room but…”

Dan looked at Chloe, looked at the tents, then looked back at Chloe. How had he not considered the sleeping arrangements until this moment?

“Look, there’s only two tents,” Chloe explained, entirely reasonably, “so Ella and I will take one, and you and Luci—”

“Chlo…” Dan lowered his voice, mindful of Lucifer’s infuriating smirk in the background. “You know he’s gonna be—”

“Do you want  _ us _ to share a tent, Dan?”

Dan frowned. “Well, I…”

“I’d be  _ glad _ to share such a…diminutive tent with your lovely ex, Daniel.” Lucifer cut in, leering a little. “Very intimate, really.”

Dan’s glare could’ve reignited the already dying fire; Lucifer, the bastard, didn’t even flinch, though, at Chloe’s raised eyebrow, he raised his hands, placating.

“Yes, fine, fine.  _ I _ will sleep with the douche.” He turned his leer on Dan. “He might even enjoy it.”

Dan ground his knuckles into his forehead trying to stifle a groan of annoyance. He saw his future, then, spread out before him, and it was little more than innuendo and snide comments about ‘sleeping with Lucifer’.  _ Ignore him, _ Dan told himself.

“Hmm…” Lucifer mused with his customary shit-eating grin on his face. “Whatever shall we do to pass the time?” He pressed his tongue to the inside of his cheek and winked.

_ Ignore him. Ignore him. Ignore him. _

Dan reached into what was left of his pack and pulled out a deck he’d won from his monthly poker game. “Uh… We could play cards?”

“Daniel, if you suggest some toddler play game, I will  _ ram _ that deck—”

“Lucifer!”

“What,  _ Detective?” _ he asked icily. “Surely you can't be interested in games designed for your offspring when she's nowhere nearby.”

Dan huffed out a breath, but Chloe held up her hand. “Look. everyone’s tired. It’s been a long day. So why don’t we just—”

"I thought all parents enjoyed talking about their progeny?"

It was coming up on the time when Dan and Chloe were supposed to call Trixie, to tell her goodnight and that they'd see her tomorrow. But now they didn't have a phone, and Dan didn't have to take this. “Just shut up about it, alright?”

“But, I—”

“Not when we’re stuck in the woods, Lucifer,” Chloe said quietly.

Lucifer sniffed.  _ “Apologies, _ Detective.” He had a note of a sneer in his voice, clearly ready to take out his own frustration on everyone around him like the child he was.

Dan scoffed. "Yeah, for once in your life just shut up about things you have no idea about."

"If you took your  _ own  _ advice on that front, Daniel, you'd be sitting there a good long while without speaking a word. On second thought, let's do that, shall we?"

"Guys..." Ella pleaded.

"Dan, can't you just stop needling him for two seconds?"

Dan groaned. How was this always  _ his _ fault? "Me?  _ He's  _ the one who brings up every single argument we—"

"So be the bigger man, Dan."

Lucifer snickered, but Chloe cut him off with a glare.

Dan scuffed his sole against the ground. "If he could just shut up for two seconds and give us some peace..."

Lucifer stood up and stalked away in a huff. They sat in silence for a moment, staring at each other.

Chloe sighed and got up "I...I can't deal with this right now. Or him. I'm going to bed. One of you make sure he gets back alive. I don't want to deal with the paperwork if he gets eaten." She walked over to her tent and started carefully crawling in around the repairs they’d made.

“Dude, there’s  _ bears _ out there,” Ella said anxiously, looking like she might get up and follow him anyway.

Dan stood and glanced at Ella awkwardly. “I’ll… go get him.” He steeled himself and headed in the direction Lucifer had gone. If that bastard got him killed, he was going to kill him back.

Even if that didn’t make any sense.

* * *

After stomping through a quarter mile of brush, as alert of the sound of bears as he was aware that there wasn’t much he could do if a bear decided to end him, Dan found himself in a clearing dimly lit by the crescent moon.

Lucifer was sitting on a rock, staring at the sky, looking stiller than Dan had ever seen. He didn’t even look down when Dan sat awkwardly next to him, only sighing.

“What is it, Daniel?”

Dan shook his head. “Look, man, you can’t just… run off like that.”

“What, were you  _ worried _ about me?” He finally looked at Dan, and there was so much disbelief in his expression that the bitter retort died on Dan’s tongue.

“Kind of! There’s a bear out here.”

He hummed. “More than one, actually. Don’t worry, I’m only vulnerable around the detective.”

Dan boggled at him, but he only shrugged, and returned his gaze to the sky. Dan followed it. “What are we looking at?”

Lucifer sat in silence for so long Dan was sure he wasn’t going to respond, but then he cleared his throat. “The light pollution is… horrendous in the city. Can’t hardly see the stars at all.”

Dan was never much for stargazing, but something about the strange solemnity in Lucifer made him pay more attention than he normally did. This far up in the mountains, above the smog, the visible stars numbered in the millions. The milky way, which Dan only remembered seeing half a dozen times in his life, crossed the sky like it was spilled out by the hand of a god he only believed in on Christmas and Easter. The light glistened like the snow above the tree line, but his gaze was drawn down to the man beside him, who he’d almost been party to the murder of. Who infuriated him to no end on a daily basis. Who he’d once thought he hated.

Who was watching the stars like they might burn out if he looked away.

“Daniel,” Lucifer said suddenly, meeting Dan’s eyes with his own annoyed expression, “you’re staring.” He stood up and brushed his pants off, suddenly a thousand miles away from that odd, introspective man Dan had found in this clearing.

Dan blinked.

“Are you coming?”

And Dan had to jog to catch up to his long strides, Lucifer not once looking behind him to check that Dan was still there.

* * *

The tent was  _ so _ fucking small.

Dan pulled his shoes off and shoved himself and his sleeping bag into the corner of the tent. Or, at least,  _ a _ corner. It was all corners.  _ Goddammit. _

He shivered, zipping the bag around himself. A voice in his head muttered that sharing body heat might be a good plan, especially with the tent being so torn up, but the rest of him shouted it down. While it was technically possible that Lucifer would manage to  _ not _ be an ass, it seemed unlikely, especially with how he was grumbling and leering by turns. How did Dan end up in situations like this?

Maybe this was what he got for falling in with bastards like Graham and Paolucci, for lying to Chloe for months. He was making Lucifer look reliable by comparison, and that asshole’s picture was probably in the dictionary next to the definition of the word ‘sketchy’.

He shook his head and tried to force himself asleep before Lucifer could even get into the tent, but  _ obviously _ that wasn’t going to work, and he found himself with a faceful of douchebag as Lucifer tried to stuff all his gangly limbs into the tent at once, and ended up almost face planting into Dan’s lap. He gave the tent—or maybe Dan—the sort of affronted look better suited to a cat, before he started…  _ taking his shirt off? _

“What are you  _ doing?” _ Dan’s voice nearly cracked as Lucifer whacked him in the face in his effort to pull the fabric from his shoulders.

“What?” Lucifer asked. “Just because we’re in the bloody hinterlands doesn’t mean I can’t be  _ civilized.” _ He threw the shirt aside, and it somehow got tangled around Dan’s head.

When he managed to pull it off, Lucifer was trying to shove his legs into the sleeping bag, but Dan barely noticed, barely noticed the shirt falling from his hands, barely noticed anything except for the giant, crescent-shaped scars on either side of Lucifer’s upper back.

“What the fuck?” he heard himself mutter, and Lucifer twisted around to look at him, settling into his sleeping bag.

“What was that, douche?”

Dan shook his head, undeterred. “Your back— The hell happened?”

He hummed. “Well, I guess Hell  _ was _ part of it.”

“What?” Dan blinked.

Lucifer shrugged, but then the leer came back. “Like what you see, Daniel?”

Dan rolled his eyes. “Just shut up and sleep.”

For once, Lucifer did as he was told, with only another moment of amusedly running his tongue over his teeth. But it took Dan hours to finally sleep—because of the cold, because of the awkwardness of his position.

Because of those scars, shining strangely in the moonlight.

* * *

Dan woke to his stomach complaining from lack of food, his lips chapped, and the rest of him freezing. He shivered, and his back ached, and the thought of walking back down this goddamn mountain made him want to yell. Loudly.

He was alone in the tent, and he thanked God or  _ whatever _ for that blessing. He managed to get himself back together in relative peace and shoved himself out of the tent feet first, pulling his shoes on. He got himself out without breaking the questionably solid structure of the broken tent—win—and stood up to find Ella stamping out the fire, Chloe packing up what she could, and Lucifer leaning against a nearby tree smoking.

Together, the three of them who weren’t Lucifer managed to clean the campsite up enough to leave, though they’d have to send someone to clean what they couldn’t later. As Ella gathered up the worst of the trash into a pile, Dan wandered over to Chloe, who was massaging at her forehead.

“You alright, Chlo?”

She sighed and glanced over at him. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m just tired.” She gave him a brittle smile. “Didn’t sleep well. You?”

“Could’ve been worse,” he admitted.

“Are we going or not?” Lucifer asked snidely, crushing the butt underfoot, and the headache that was waiting behind Dan’s eyes crawled over the rest of his skull.

Chloe rolled her eyes, not, Dan was certain, for the first time of the day. “Let’s go.”

* * *

Whatever Dan had done to piss off the universe, he wanted it to know he was deeply sorry.

The narrow, winding, little road that cut through the side of the mountain was completely and  _ entirely  _ covered with rocks. Boulders all the way down to pebbles, crushing the railing, totaling their rented car, which had been parked in the narrow pull off, and continuing their tumble down the sheer cliff face.

“There’s no getting through,” Chloe said, leaning against the trailhead marker, panting slightly from the long journey down to this dead end.

“And even if we could,” Dan added, “it’s two hour’s drive. We don’t have the daylight to walk it.”

“So… what, we just stay here until someone comes to clean off the road?” Ella asked, kicking a small rock frustratedly.

“No,” Dan said, frowning. “We have to go back.”

“Why would we do  _ that, _ Daniel?” Lucifer asked, scoffing. “We already walked all the way here.”

Dan shook his head. They were  _ all  _ tired, right? “Dude, we’re gonna need water. We know where there’s a stream, but it’s back where we came from.”

He sighed, and Dan swore he heard the words  _ “bloody mortality” _ as they turned around and started hiking back up the mountain.

* * *

Dan stared at the campsite they had left and groaned. He was tired, thirsty,  _ starving, _ and his feet hurt. He was also seriously considering shooting Lucifer. He didn’t have his gun; he considered this only a minor obstacle.

“We have trekked all over hither and yon because of you, Daniel.  _ May we stop now?” _ Lucifer asked sharply. “Even Dad let us have a day of rest once in a while.”

Dan ground his palms into his eyes. A rock would do, in a pinch. They were really far out; no one would find the body.  _ Keep it together, Dan, _ he told himself.

They set up camp, slowly, trying to keep everything from falling apart worse than it already had. Or… three of them did. Lucifer had fucked off again, of  _ course, _ occasionally wandering over to insult Dan. Ella had gone to gather more firewood from the trees at the edge of their clearing; Chloe was trying to repair her tent, and Dan his. As he attempted to get the tent to stand back up, pulling out his multitool to straighten out a beam with his pliers, Lucifer stepped up behind him.

“I thought you used to be a boy scout, Daniel.”

Dan grunted in reply, deeply regretting mentioning that in his presence.  _ Ignore him. Ignore him. Ignore him. _

“I've  _ known  _ several men who used to be in the program, and they seemed far more competent with  _ their  _ tools.”

The frame fell apart under Dan’s hands, the tent collapsing in on itself. “Shit!”

“What  _ filthy _ language, Dan—”

“You know what!” Dan turned around to glare at him.

Lucifer chuckled. “What?”

Dan stammered. “You are  _ such _ a—”

“Ow!” There was a crash from the woods on the other side of the clearing. Lucifer rushed over immediately, Dan at his heels.

Ella had slipped down a small, muddy embankment, and all the wood she’d been gathering was scattered around her. Chloe was trying to get to her without falling in herself, but Lucifer, pushing past her, stepped lightly down the steep incline and easily picked up Ella. 

“Are you alright, Miss Lopez?” he asked, no scorn left in his voice as he climbed out.

She groaned. “I think I twisted my ankle.”

He walked back into the camp and set her carefully in the one chair, crouching to examine her ankle, tucking up the hem of her pants and gently removing her shoe.

Dan and Chloe blinked at each other before glancing back at Lucifer and Ella.

“Just a sprain,” he reassured, getting up and walking away..

“Can’t believe this,” she muttered to herself, so quietly Dan could barely hear her. “Smooth move, Ella.”

Lucifer was over by the tree where he’d been smoking, before, and annoyance flared up in Dan again. How did he keep going back and forth between caring and not? But then there was a terrible scraping sound, and Dan stared.

Lucifer was dragging over a large fallen log, knocking things over the whole way. He set it down in front of Ella and helped her prop her leg up on it. He brushed his hands together to dislodge the worst of the dirt, but seemed like he hadn’t even noticed the mud caked on his fancy boots and staining his pant legs. “Right, then, that’s settled.”

“We’ll need better shelters than this,” Dan said, back to staring at the pile of plastic and tarp that used to be a tent. He had no idea what to do with Lucifer’s behavior, now, and he buried it with all the other weird shit he’d seen that guy do. He almost missed the insults. Almost.

“And water.” Chloe frowned. “It’s a half-hour to that creek.”

“I’ll go,” Dan said immediately. He needed to get away, to do something with all these thoughts in his head.

“There’s  _ still  _ bears out there, guys,” Ella reminded them, wincing as she tried to adjust on the chair.

“We need the water,” Chloe said, biting her lip.

“I’ve got bear spray!” Ella said. “It’s, uh, in my bag over… somewhere.”

Dan picked his way around the firepit and retrieved the spray.and Ella’s empty water bottle. He returned, looked at Chloe, and held out his hand. “Your water bottle?”

She shook her head. “I’m going with you.”

_ “Detective?” _ Lucifer half-whined. 

“Stay with Ella,” she said sharply.

He pouted, but Dan ignored him, and he and Chloe headed out together.

* * *

The journey to the creek was uneventful, and Dan’s mind wandered as they crossed the rough terrain. His feet felt like they were on fire, but he pushed down the pain, instead thinking about the giant, horrifying scars on Lucifer’s back. The few times he’d heard him talk about his past, it had sounded like Hell.

As they approached the small stream, the water burbled pleasantly over the rocks, taunting Dan’s chapped lips and dry throat, but he pushed that down too.They knelt on the bank and leaned down to fill their water bottles. “Did Lucifer really not bring  _ any _ water?” Dan asked, shaking his head as they stood back up. 

“Apparently,” Chloe sighed. They started heading back, and Dan frowned.

He didn’t really like the guy, but he didn’t want to air out his dirty laundry. And yet... “Have you seen Lucifer’s...?” He gestured vaguely at his back.

Chloe bit her lip. “Yeah.”

They walked in silence for a while, climbing a ridge and ducking under some branches. Some part of Dan really didn’t want to know, but he was a cop, and those things fairly screamed abuse. Or torture. Or both.

“Has he talked to you about it?”

They shared a look, then, like they had when they were married. They were  _ both  _ cops; Dan might’ve gotten lost along the way, but he still believed in protecting people.

Chloe sighed. “He said it was his dad’s fault. Said a lot of other stuff, but that’s...”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

A peal of thunder echoed across the sky, and they hastened their pace. Dan shook his head. “Think I’m starting to get why he is the way he is.”

“Yep,” Chloe said. “I try to be understanding, but...”

“Doesn’t excuse him being an ass, though.”

“Yeah.”

They were picking their way over a few muddy spots when Chloe spoke again. “You know, he’s not always— He  _ can  _ be better.”

“I know,” Dan said, remembering those few moments when he’d  _ not _ been an asshole. “He just drives me up the wall. And I know...” He took a deep breath. “Some of it I deserved.”

“Dan...”

“No, I did. I  _ do. _ Lucifer may be a colossal dick sometimes, but he wasn’t wrong to call me out for what I put you through.”

“We’ve talked about this,” Chloe reminded him.

“Yeah, I know.” Dan hissed in a breath. “It’s just... I don’t wanna be that guy.”

Chloe stopped in her tracks, turning to Dan, giving him a glare torn somewhere between compassion and frustration. “Then don’t be.” 

He nodded to himself as they approached the camp. He didn’t always succeed, but he didn’t always fail either, and he was always trying. That had to be enough. He hoped it would be.

He was feeling almost charitable toward Lucifer just in time for he and Chloe to spot him and Ella, lying next to each other, giggling and passing a joint back and forth.

“His royal doucheness!” Lucifer crowed. “So glad to be granted an audience!”

Dan buried his head in his hands.

“Lucifer...” Chloe sighed. “What? Why?  _ How...?” _

Dan glanced back at them. They were still sprawled on the ground, eyes heavy-lidded and expressions hazy. 

Lucifer held up three fingers and put them down one at a time. “First, I think you know. Second, Miss Lopez was in pain and refused the cocaine—“

Ella burst into further laughter and made a thumbs up.

“—and  _ third... _ I never go anywhere without the Devil’s lettuce, and a little  _ queso blanco, _ and... Well, it’s just a whole salad, really, isn’t it?”

“Y-you...” Chloe sputtered. “You have  _ coke?” _

“Not anymore.” He sniffed.

Chloe continued to quietly rage next to him, but Dan was looking past Lucifer and Ella, now, because instead of two mostly destroyed tents, there was a shelter, large enough for all of them.

It wasn’t some haphazard lean-to, either. No, it had a canopy roof, with fallen branches as support beams, overlaid with torn pieces of tent apparently sewn together with some frayed rope, and held together with bungees, carabiners, and pieces of plastic from their mostly destroyed food stores.

The fire was shored up, shielded from the presumed coming rain, and directed to provide heat, and the ground under the shelter was covered with layers of pine needles to insulate against the cold.

Even if Ella hadn’t had a sprained ankle, some of this was too high up for her to reach. Dan’s image of Lucifer’s childhood shifted again, from abusive household to the English equivalent of doomsday preppers... though,  _ also _ abusive. 

“How?” Dan asked flatly.

Lucifer shrugged and stood, seeming way too sure on his feet for someone that blazed. “Thank Dad,” he said, reaching for one of the water bottles. “I’m  _ parched.” _

“What the—?  _ Stop that!” _ Chloe cried, pulling the bottle out of reach. “We still have to boil it!”

“Why?” Lucifer asked blankly, rocking on his heels.

Dan blinked. “Bacteria?  _ Parasites?” _

“Oh.” He grumbled and flopped back to the ground.  _ ”Fine, _ I suppose.”

Thankfully, the small pot Dan brought to cook in was still intact, and it didn’t take long to get all the water boiled, though they had to stop Lucifer from trying to get at it.

“I didn’t even know you  _ drank  _ water!” Chloe exclaimed. 

“Yes, well, desperate times and all,” Lucifer said airily.

When it started to rain, they relocated Ella—who was still more than a little high—to a spot under the shelter canopy.

Chloe got up. “We need to...  _ Whoa.” _ She nearly tripped over her own feet, but Lucifer caught her.

“Steady on, Detective.” He helped her over to sit next to Ella. 

“Food,” she finally managed, leaning against the trunk of one of the support trees, trying to stand back up. “We need food. Dan, you and I can—“ She fell over, again.

“I got it, Chlo,” Dan told her, standing up. If he was being honest, he didn’t feel great himself. But someone had to do it, and he certainly didn’t trust—

“I’ll go as well, hmm?” Lucifer said, smirking again. “Make sure Daniel doesn’t get eaten by any wild animals?”

Chloe sighed, Ella giggled again, and Dan seriously considered saying no. But as much as he hated to admit it, Lucifer wasn’t wrong. He grabbed the bear spray and his mostly empty pack, stalking off through the trees.

“You coming?”

Let Lucifer have to run to catch up for once.

* * *

Dan quickly realized that the scouts had been a quarter of a century ago, and he was in no way, shape, or form qualified to gather food in the wilderness.

This was really just the  _ best _ weekend.

“Do you  _ at all _ know what you’re doing, Daniel?” Lucifer asked as they rounded yet another copse of dry, mostly leafless trees. Where did nature even  _ keep _ food, anyway?

Dan scoffed. “Of course, I do.” He nodded at a nearby tree. “Are, uh, those berries edible?”

Lucifer tilted his head. “How should  _ I _ know, douche?”

“Because…” Dan sighed.  _ You’re never gonna understand this guy, _ Dan told himself.  _ Stop trying. _

" _ I _ wasn’t responsible for growing the plants in Eden,” Lucifer continued, licking his lips, ”just  _ tasting _ them.”

Dan boggled at him for a moment before clearing his throat. “Okay, maybe I  _ don’t _ know what I’m doing,” he admitted quietly.

Lucifer rolled his eyes. “I cannot believe your species has survived this long. Right, come on, then.”

Dan nervously followed as Lucifer led them deeper into the woods. It started to rain harder, and Dan shivered whenever the drops crept past his coat. Lucifer was wearing some sort of fancy down jacket which should have been useless as soon as it got wet, but he seemed perfectly comfortable wandering around the woods. Weirdly comfortable for a guy who complained when he got a papercut.

“Sun’s going down,” Lucifer observed after they’d been walking for nearly half an hour. “I like our chances.”

Dan blinked. “Our chances at what?”

Lucifer glanced over at him. “Oh, my dear douche…” And he grinned wolfishly. “We’re hunting  _ wabbits.” _

“We’re—?”

“Now,” Lucifer said, businesslike, “their hides are brown. In this light, you’ll lose them in the brush. The eyes are what you want to look for.”

“Uh…”

“Don’t worry. You have the easy job. You’ll make a fine hunting dog yet.”

“I’m not—”

“Just scare them up out of their forms, and I’ll catch them.”

Dan frowned as they kept walking. “Seriously, though, where did you learn all this?”

Lucifer shrugged. “This is how humanity survived for millennia. I got bored.”

Dan shook his head.  _ Stop trying to understand him, _ echoed in his brain again, but it was so hard not to care, especially when he saw the awful edges of those horrible scars whenever he closed his eyes. They lapsed into relative silence again, and were crossing a small clearing when Lucifer held up a hand.

Dan was still stuck in his head trying to ignore the images of a black haired boy being pinned to the ground while a man pressed a red-hot iron into his back over and over and over again. The screaming, in his mind, was so loud he ran smack into Lucifer when he stopped. Lucifer huffed and brushed down his probably ruined jacket as if Dan had been the one to destroy it. He pointed across the clearing to a large tree that was surrounded by brambles.

"Walk over there, but  _ slowly. _ Ten paces, then stop, wait for a bit, then ten paces again.”

Dan frowned. "Why?"

"Just do as you're told for once," he said, without a lick of irony.

Dan sighed again, but he was  _ so _ hungry. He really hoped this would work. He started walking, moving at such a slow pace he felt like he was a villain in a Scooby Doo cartoon. "Lucifer, I have no idea what I'm doing."

Lucifer scoffed. “You act like you’ve never done this before.”

“Uh… that’s cause I haven’t.”

Lucifer stared at him blankly, then sighed. "Daniel, if anyone can slowly blunder through the forest and scare animals, it's you."

Dan stomped and kicked and otherwise made a menace of himself while Lucifer watched with a care and seriousness that sat oddly on his face. When Dan reached the tree on the other side of the clearing and turned around, it was to find Lucifer crouched only feet away from him, right at the edge of the brush. He was completely still and silent, and nothing had unnerved Dan quite so much. He remembered before that charity event when he’d gone up to the penthouse worried that Malcolm might’ve shot Lucifer, only to find him lying on the floor like he was dead.

And then he’d woken up with a gasp and an offer to,  _ Have a drink, two if you like, _ and Dan had decided it wasn’t worth his skin or his sanity to think about it any harder than that.

Dan retraced his steps, making them as loud as possible, and then he saw it, buried in brambles. A single chocolate brown eye. He didn’t speak, merely pointed, and Lucifer nodded almost imperceptibly. Dan focused on that area, stepping just a little closer to increase the threat, and, when he froze again, the rabbit ran for it.

It tried to circle Dan, to stay close to its burrow and only go far enough away to survive, but Lucifer was positioned perfectly to intercept it, and, with a motion so fast Dan could hardly see it, he plucked it from the ground and quietly and efficiently wrung its neck.

The small crack was strangely loud in the silence.

“Here,” Lucifer said brightly, standing, “hold this.” And he shoved the dead rabbit into Dan’s arms.

Dan sputtered, feeling the soft fur under his hands. “Dude, what the fuck?”

Lucifer threw an exasperated huff over his shoulder as he stalked back into the brush, settling a little deeper this time. "I need both hands for this. And why are you complaining? I thought you were  _ hungry?" _

"I-I didn't think we were going to be hunting!"

Lucifer scoffed. "It’s not much of one. Alas, it's been too long since I hosted the wild hunt."

“I…” Dan sighed. “What are we—?”

"Daniel, if you could shut up, please? You're scaring the prey away."

“You’re telling  _ me _ to—?”

Lucifer mimed zipping his lips shut and throwing away the key. Dan wondered if he  _ did _ know about the improv after all. Lucifer gestured. “Go on, then. Get another up.” He tried a leer, but his heart clearly wasn’t in it.

Dan nodded and got to work.

A few minutes later, they’d caught two rabbits and Lucifer was close, he said, to getting a third. Dan marked his paces again, and another shot out, little more than a brown blur. But its trajectory was further out than the others. Lucifer couldn’t simply dart out his hand and catch it, and Dan assumed it was lost. Instead, Lucifer dove sideways with a violent explosion of movement, throwing himself head first into thorny brambles, scrambling on hands and knees to hook a leg. He caught at its neck and snapped it with a quiet  _ pop. _ He looked up at Dan and grinned.

Hair wild, slacks torn away at the knee, and teeth bared in a gleeful grimace, Dan almost believed, for a moment, that Lucifer was who he said he was. But then he shook himself. That was impossible. Instead, he reassessed his assumptions about Lucifer’s childhood yet again, settling on 'feral child' like those documentaries he watched when insomnia struck. It would explain the lack of social graces. And the way he stole Dan’s pudding.

He was the most fastidious guy Dan had ever met, and he had dirt streaked across his face, mud soaking into his pants, and blood under his fingernails.

What the  _ actual  _ hell?

* * *

When they arrived back at camp, Lucifer, rabbits back in hand, headed to the log he'd dragged into the middle of the clearing. Chloe joined Dan where he was still staring blankly at Lucifer, as he had been every minute of their return,  _ especially _ when it had gotten dark and it hadn’t seemed to hinder his movements even the slightest bit.

"What happened?"

"I... don't know."

Chloe glanced over at Lucifer, who now seemed to be dressing the animals, tearing at their fur with careful tugs and sliding the hides off like they were gloves. "Did you catch  _ rabbits? _ Dan, you've never hunted anything in your life."

"Lucifer did it." He realized he sounded dazed. It had been too long of a goddamn day.

"Lucifer knows how to...?"

Dan shook his head. "I don't know, Chlo. I just don't know."

Lucifer rigged up a spit out of a couple of tree branches and a few more pieces of trash. The smell of the meat cooking almost made Dan want to cry. He and Chloe grabbed their sleeping bags and blankets and put them under the shelter, helping Ella up to slip some cushioning underneath her as well. They settled on top of them and stared as the rabbit slowly roasted

Dan’s head began to swim, and he drank a little more water. It made him feel better, but not by as much as he’d hoped.

Lucifer turned the spit occasionally, wandering off to do… something, but Dan was too dazed from lack of food to really pay attention. Had he just been imagining how quickly Lucifer had moved catching those rabbits, how easily he had moved through the dark underbrush? Had he imagined the flash he’d thought he’d seen in Lucifer’s gaze, walking though the darkness, eyes glowing almost like a wolf’s?

It was easier to believe he was making it up. It was easier to believe it all made sense.

* * *

The roasted rabbit was the best thing Dan had ever eaten. He stripped meat from bones with relish bordering on desperation, grease running down his chin. They didn’t talk much, everyone too focused on their own hunger, but when they were done, there was only most of one rabbit left. 

Between missing a couple meals and having to spend way too many hours with Lucifer, Dan found himself working on a solid food coma after they’d finished eating. It was getting cold, but the fire was still roaring, and the shelter Lucifer had built was actually pretty warm. Dan rested his back against the trunk of one of the support trees and let his eyes drift shut, feeling something like comfort for the first time in several days. His dreams were confused things, with wolves stealing his pudding and Lucifer staring at him with burning, red eyes.

He woke, jerking back upright, to Ella’s hand on his shoulder. He tried to talk but she slammed her hand over his mouth. He blinked the sleep from his eyes and looked past their gently crackling fire to where she and Chloe were, fear on their faces.

Lucifer had left the remaining rabbit on the log he’d dragged out to the middle of the clearing to let it dry out. And Dan and Chloe and Ella had all been too out of it to realize how bad an idea that was. 

Because now, there was a bear, heavy with pre-hibernation feeding, sniffing around in the middle of camp, drawn in by the scent of the food. They moved slowly, carefully, and Dan, biting his lip to keep himself steady, reached for the bear spray. His fingers scraped against the plastic edge of the lid, so close to—

There was a snap as the bear broke a bone between its jaws, and Lucifer, who had apparently also fallen asleep, was up like a shot. “Hn?”

Chloe grabbed at his shoulder and pressed her finger to her lips, but he brushed her off, gaze flitting from her to Dan to Ella to...

“Oi, that’s  _ my  _ rabbit!” he shouted, decisively breaking the silence. 

The bear growled and reared up on its hind legs, and Dan’s heart clenched. This asshole was going to get them all killed.

“Lucifer,  _ shh,” _ Chloe hissed harshly, but he ignored her, starting to rise, apparently preparing to go after it. 

“Goddammit,” Dan muttered under his breath. He may not like the guy, but he couldn’t just let him get himself killed. 

No elegant solutions presenting themselves, Dan opted for the more effective. A toddler’s favorite move—wrapping his arms around Lucifer’s legs and becoming deadweight. It didn’t work. Lucifer didn’t even slow down, just dragged him the few feet before his grip slipped and he ended up on the ground, his tailbone sore.

“Lucifer, don’t!” But he ignored them all, stalking up to the bear that was now watching him and growling.

“Give that back! It’s not  _ yours.” _

Dan was torn between burying his face in his hands and staring in abject horror. Horror won, barely. 

The bear, being a bear, didn’t answer. Lucifer was going to get himself killed, and it was, somehow, going to be Dan’s fault. This was what his life was now.

Lucifer was only a few feet away, and the bear snarled, a sound that made Dan’s heart trip into a new, faster beat. Ella and Chloe were shaking; Dan probably was too. Adrenaline flooded his veins, but he couldn’t run and he couldn’t attack. They sat there together, frozen with terror.

Lucifer didn’t have that problem, apparently, still talking as if the bear might understand, as if he didn’t have the same instinctual fear, staring the thing right in the eyes.

“It’s not nice to take things without asking,” he said, still way too calm.

The bear growled; he growled back, a low snarl that sent Dan’s heart rate even higher. He was out of questions, only holding onto a single image of a dead consultant smeared across the campsite. The bear lunged, quicker than its hundreds of pounds of weight and six and a half feet of height suggested it could, and Ella shrieked, but Lucifer dodged out of the way with a fancy pirouette, and then he...

Punched the bear.

He punched the bear.

He punched the bear  _ in the face, _ and it reared back with a howl of actual pain.

Lucifer laughed. “That’s what you get for—“

The bear scrambled backward, fell to all fours, and took off with a run. Dan sighed in relief, but then...

“Give me back my damn rabbit!”

And he chased after it, running full-tilt into the woods like a goddamn Olympian.

Dan looked over at Chloe and Ella, their faces pale. “Did-did that actually happen?”

Ella blinked rapidly; Chloe slumped against the tree trunk.

No one seemed particularly inclined to chase Lucifer and a bear into the night. Chloe wrapped her arms around her knees, staring at nothing; Ella started up a litany of, “He’ll be alright; I’m  _ sure _ he’ll be alright;” and Dan pressed his palms into his eyes, trying not to see the images of Lucifer’s dead body strewn over the fallen leaves. Some part of Dan whispered, again, that this was his fault, like Malcolm had been. Like keeping his job had been, demotion or not.

He still wondered why he hadn’t really been punished for that.

Chloe bit her lip and stood up. “We can’t just leave him out there.”

Ella rubbed at her ankle, a tear dripping down her cheek.

“We don’t have flashlights,” Dan said as reasonably as he could manage. “It’s dark and cold and we have  _ no _ idea where—”

And Lucifer walked back into the camp, jacket entirely gone, the bottom half of his left pant leg missing, and an apparent gash in his button down. But there was no blood, he wasn’t limping, was, in fact, smiling like a proud first grader, bringing home his first report card.

The rabbit was held securely in his hand.

* * *

They settled in for the night, gathering more firewood, ducking back under the confines of the shelter before the rain got worse. It beat down steadily, now, and the wind was picking up. Sharing body heat was just something they’d have to do, and Dan was no longer worried about the jokes and the insinuations. He was, however, rather worried about Lucifer, who had slipped into the weird silence he’d been in the night before, ignoring Chloe’s questions about what had happened and only assuring Ella, “I’m perfectly fine, Miss Lopez.”

They both fell asleep, eventually, wrapped up in their sleeping bags, huddled together. Lucifer was resting against a tree, staring upward at the canopy of plant and debris.

Dan sighed. He was still too full of adrenaline to sleep. 

“You have a question,” Lucifer said, eyes closed now, head tilted upward. “Ask it.”

“Nothing you’ve done today makes any sense,” Dan said roughly. Now that his fear was slowly going away, it appeared frustration was back full force.

“That’s… not a question, Daniel.”

“Fine!” Dan spat, but under his breath, mindful of Chloe and Ella. The real question, then. The one he’d had since they met. “Who the hell  _ are  _ you?”

Lucifer rolled his shoulders and settled back further, huffing out a breath. “You know what I’ll say—”

“Yeah.”

“—and yet you continue to ask. Dearie me, we  _ are _ a masochist, aren’t we?”

It seemed like no one in the universe was as good at getting under his skin as Lucifer. But they were going to have a damn adult conversation about this; he wasn’t going to let it hang over his head. Not like Palmetto. Not like his demotion.

“Sure, whatever. I’m a masochist. Call me what you want”—he waved down Lucifer’s undoubtably snarky reply before he could make it—“just tell me, did your dad do that to your back?”

“Do what?”

“The scars.”

There was a chill in the air, now, that had nothing to do with the night and the rain. “No, I did,” Lucifer said flatly. “It was  _ my  _ choice. Mine alone.”

Dan exhaled slowly. “Why would you do that?”

Lucifer’s eyes were open, again, but he wasn’t looking at Dan. He was glaring upward, seemingly past the shelter, up toward the stars. “To get away from Him,” he ground out, jaw clenching.

Dan could stop, now, pretend to go to sleep, but he didn’t want to be that guy anymore. He didn’t want to be the guy who just ignored everything that wasn’t  _ his _ problem, however he defined it. He’d done that too much with Palmetto. Kept his head down. Didn’t make waves. But Lucifer, no matter how much of a dick he was, didn’t deserve to be ignored.

“I’m sorry,” Dan said simply.

Lucifer scoffed. “It’s not your fault,  _ Daniel.” _ He made it sound almost like an insult.

“I know.” And Dan thought that maybe he could believe it. He shrugged. “I’m sorry whatever happened to you happened. You didn’t deserve it.”

Lucifer scowled. “How would you know?”

“Look, I’ve got a kid—”

“I am well aware of your spawn.”

_ “—and... _ there’s  _ nothing _ Trixie could do that I would ever…” He shook his head. “Not ever.”

Lucifer’s eyes slipped back closed, and Dan assumed the conversation was over. But then he sighed, and there was a terrible, bone-deep weariness to it, one that went far beyond getting stuck up a mountain for a few days. “You’re a good man, Dan.”

Dan was about to thank him when he continued.

“Sometimes.”

Dan snorted and turned over on his sleeping bag, finally feeling like he could fall asleep.

* * *

Dan woke to a strange scraping sound. He sat up, blinking his eyes open in the early dawn light. Chloe and Ella were behind him, pulling themselves out of their sleeping bags and yawning. Lucifer was in front of him, half in and half out of his own sleeping bag, his back to Dan.

_ “Finally.” _

Dan looked over at the source of the sound. Maze was sitting on the only good camp chair, sharpening a deadly-looking knife. She scoffed as Lucifer stirred. “Morning, bitches. Hey, Chlo.”

“...hi,” Chloe said, confused.

Dan stared. “How... are you here?

Maze rolled her eyes. “Car, then walked. Look, if you’re done  _ cuddling, _ or whatever, we can leave.”

Lucifer pulled himself up. “Miss Lopez will need assistance.”

Maze nodded and came over. “C'mon, Ellen, up you get.” She pulled her into an easy fireman’s carry.

“Uh… thanks?” Ella squeaked.

Dan found his voice. “How did you  _ get _ here?”

She shrugged a shoulder. “Cleared the rocks away.” 

Dan started picking up what he could and shoving it into his pack. Chloe frowned, doing the same. “Hey, Maze, where are your supplies?”

“What supplies?” Maze asked, making impatient noises, starting to lead them back down the mountain.

“Like… water or food or… stuff to clear away the rocks?”

“Why would I need that?” Maze asked blankly. When Dan stared at her, she scowled. “Get a move on. I don’t have all day.”

As they started heading down, a thought occurred to Dan. “But… how did you even find us?”

Lucifer laughed as he kicked another pinecone, smacking Dan directly on the ass with it, holding his roasted rabbit like it had been the point of the scavenger hunt the whole time. “Oh, Mazikeen  _ always  _ knows where I am.”

“What?”

**Author's Note:**

> For the [Luciferprompt](https://luciferprompts.tumblr.com/post/173305039180): "Lucifer is a shameless hedonist and all his friends assume that he wouldn't last ten seconds without his three piece suits, silk sheets and fine liquor. But when they end up in an extreme survival situation, Lucifer surprises everyone by roughing it like a pro. He likes his luxuries, because he had to go without for millennia... "


End file.
